Travaux du 19ème CIL | 19th ICL papers

Congrès International des Linguistes, Genève 20-27 Juillet 2013

International Congress of Linguists, Geneva 20-27 July 2013

Thayanne LIMA
Universidade Federal de Uberlandia, Brazil
thayannerslima@hotmail.com

Saussure and Labov: congruencies and diver-

gences

oral presentation in session: 1 Saussure and his legacy

(Frederick Newmeyer)

Published and distributed by: Département de Linguistique de l’Université de

Genève, Rue de Candolle 2, CH-1205 Genève, Switzerland
Editor: Département de Linguistique de l’Université de Genève, Switzerland
ISBN:978-2-8399-1580-9
 Saussure and Labov: congruencies and divergences

Thayanne Raísa Silva e Lima

thayannerslima@hotmail.com

Abstract: Saussure is a classic and highly considerate linguistic in the human science
studies, his work has created a new approach to the linguistic studies that had been, for
a long time, working with comparative grammar. Thus, the author had prestige among
the intellectuals of his time and has become an icon of reference, so that many linguists
have been using his work as basis to their studies, or to develop new approaches to the
linguistic studies. Ferdinand de Saussure (1857-1913) was responsible to confer a
specific object to linguistics, the langue. The linguist, therefore, marked the history of
Modern linguistics, transgressing one whole century of studies which associated the
comparison  between  languages  and  history,  to  obtain  a  “science  that  contributes  around  
the facts of langue”,  and  only  “recognize  its  truly  and  only  object”  (NORMAND,  2009,  
p.29).   In   1916,   Saussure’s   students   edited   his   courses in general linguistics and
transformed them in the book Course in General Linguistics which is broadly known
and source of study of different linguists. We can notice that by the numerous quotes of
Saussure and the CGL in many publications, books, articles, among others. A linguist
that has used the CGL to develop his theory was William Labov, professor of linguistics
in the University of Pennsylvania, which develops researches in the sociolinguistic area,
variation and linguistic change and dialectology. In 1968, Labov, Herzog and Weinreich
have  launched  the  book  “Empirical  foundations  for  a  theory  of  linguistic  change”  that  
has initiated a different approach to the linguistic studies. Otherwise, only in 1972
Labov published the book "Socilinguistic Patterns", initializing in fact the
sociolinguistic studies with the variation theory and linguistic change. Labov was one of
the  authors  who  criticized  and  developed  another  theory  starting  from  the  saussurian’s  
ideas.  In  this  paper,  we  will  analyze  Labov’s  reading  of  saussurian’s  ideas,  focusing  on  
the concept of social/individual and of concrete/abstract, analyzing both authors and
their main works, as well as the congruencies and divergences we can find in studying
these concepts.

1. Introduction

Ferdinand de Saussure (1857-1913) was responsible for giving a specific objet to the
linguistics, the langue. This fact marks the history of modern linguistics when it differs
from the studies of the comparative grammars.  Thus,  we  start  having  a  “science  formed  
around the facts of the langue”,  in order to “identify which  is  its  real  and  only  object”  
(NORMAND, 2009, p. 29)
 In  1916  Saussure’s  students  edited  his  courses  in  general  linguistics  – all of them
took part in Geneva – and turned them into the book Course in Genral Linguistics.
These students, Bally and Sechehaye, have used the notebooks of the students that
attended  Saussure’s  classes,  and  also  some  of  Saussure’s  manuscripts, so that they could
edit the innovative ideas of the Geneva linguist, these, then, resulted in this book that is
widely known and source of many linguistics. We can notice all this repercussion only
by the fact that the CGL has been translated into more than twenty languages, or by the
many articles related to it.

One of these linguistics that has used the CGL as the bases of his theory was
Labov. Professor of linguistics at University of Pensylvania, he developed researches in
the sociolinguistics area, variation, linguistics change and dialectology. In 1968, Labov
along with Herzog and Weinreich   published   the   book   “Empirical foundations for a
theory of language”  that  began  a  different  approach  in  the  linguistics  studies,  however it
was  only  in  1972  that  Labov  published  the  book  “Sociolinguistics  Patterns”,  starting in
fact the sociolinguistics and the theory of variation and linguistics change.

We can notice that Labov quotes Saussure in his books, however we see that
there  is  a  different  reading  of  Saussure’s  work,  which  indicates  a  way  that  Labov  found  
to create a different approach in the studies of the linguistics. Therefore, we will
highlight the congruencies and divergences we can find concerning the concepts of
social and individual and of concrete and abstract wich are present in the work of both
authors.

2. Saussure

One of the great marks Saussure left to the linguistics was the designation of its
object, therefore, we notice that in the third chapter of his posthumous work, there is a
whole   chapter   dedicated,   mainly,   to   the   definition   of   the   linguistics’   object.   In   the  
chapter, subtitled   “The object of linguistics”, the author talks about   “what   is   both  
integral  and  concrete  object  of  linguistics” (SAUSSURE, 1959, p.7). We noticed that to
the understanding of the principles of the modern linguistics established after the CGL,
we first need to understand this third chapter. We confirm this when Normand
interrogates what langue is and  says  “Saussure  inaugurated  what  is  generally  recognized  
as a radical change in the linguistic field of his time (NORMAN, 2009:34). So, in this
chapter the author defines the differences between langage, langue and parole, using
one to define the other, leaving the concepts cross-linked.

As I have presented, Saussure looked for the object which would be concrete
and integral at the same time. Thereby, it is evident that langue is taken from this
definition, the author, thus, defines   that   “Language is concrete, no less so than
speaking” (SAUSSURE, 1959, p.15). Besides, when Saussure postulates about the
syntagmatic and associative relations and says that “  to language rather than to speaking
belong the syntagmatic types that are built upon regular forms”,  the  author also says that
“there’s  nothing  abstract  in  language” (SAUSSURE, 1959, p. 125). In other words, we
can find in his work excerpts which lead us to understand that langue is abstract, in all
passages the langue, as far as the parole, is defined as concrete.

We find a passage in which Saussure formulates concepts using the word

abstract,   nevertheless,   when   talking   about   abstractions   the   author   doesn’t   refer to the
nature of the langue, he uses the word abstraction to explain about the acoustic image,
so  he  says  “dans  la  langue,  au  contraire,  il  n’y  a  plus  que  l’image  visuelle  constant.  Car  
si   l’on   fait   abstraction   de   cette   multitude   de   mouvements   nécessaires pour la realizer
dans  la  parole  […]”  (SAUSSURE, 1916, p. 32)

We now focus on the concepts of social and individual which are over quoted in
the CGL as we can see in the following examples:

Speech has both an individual and a social side, and we cannot conceive of
one without the other (SAUSSURE, P.8)

But  what  is  language  [langue]?  […]  It  is  both  a  social  product  of  the  faculty  
of speech and a collection of necessary conventions that have been adopted
by a social body to permit individuals to exercise that faculty (p. 9)

In separating language from speaking we are at the same time separating: (1)
what is social from what is individual; and (2) what is essential from what is
accessory and more or less accidental (p.14)

Language is not a function of the speaker; it is a product that is passively

assimilated by the individual. (p. 14)

According to Culler the concept of social is necessary once:

If a difference bears meaning for members of a culture, then there is sign,

however abstract, which must be analyzed. For speakers of English, John
loves Mary is different in meaning from Mary loves John; therefore the
word-order constitutes a sign, a social fact, whereas some physical
differences between the way two speakers utter the sentence John loves Mary
may bear no meaning and therefore be purely material facts, not social facts.
(CULLER, 1976, p. 63)

We can notice, then, that the author is concerned about pointing out the social
and individual in the langage, the langue as social to Saussure can lead us to different
interpretations (or misinterpretations), however, in this article we propose to analyze
Labov’s  reading  of  the  concepts  concrete/abstract  and  social/individual.

3. Labov’s  reading

Labov quotes Saussure in many of his works and develops a new approach
which, maybe, Saussure had not even explored. We will discuss what Labov points out
of   Saussure’s   work,   and what his reading of saussurian concepts were like. Theses
concepts were addressed earlier in this article
 The issue of the social and the individual to Labov is mainly discussed in the
book which he has written along with Herzog and Weinreich, the authors claim that
“Saussure  ruptured with the psychologist characteristics of the neogrammarian thought:
he saw the langue as social and the parole as individual”.   We   can   notice   in   this  
fragment that the sociolinguistic authors recognize the differences present in the
saussurian’s  concepts  against  the  studies  of  Saussure’s  time.

However, the three authors highlight the importance of studying the

heterogeneous part of the langue, meaning the one which is spoken by the members of
the society, thus, they   say   that   in   the   saussurian’s   study   the   “precondition   of   dealing  
with a langue as  a  social  phenomenon  was  yet  its  complete  homogeneity”  (HERZOG;;  
LABOV; WEINREICH,  p.  56),  they  also  add  that  there  is  “no  indication  that  Saussure  
has advanced beyond Hermann Paul in his capacity of leading with a langue as a social
fact”.

In the book Sociolinguistic Patterns Labov presented what he calls the

saussurian paradox, so   he   says   “the social aspect of language is studied by observing
any one individual, but the individual aspect only by observing language in its social
context”,  so  he  concludes  that  the  science  of  the  parole has never been developed, while
the science of the langue has had a lot of success since the last half of the twentieth
century. Labov also says:

Yet curiously enough, the linguists who work within the Saussurian tradition
(and this includes the great majority) do not deal with social life at all: they
work with one or two informants in their offices, or examine their own
knowledge of langue. Furthermore, they insist that explanations of linguistic
facts   be   drawn   from   other   linguistic   facts,   not   from   any   “external”   data   on  
social behavior. (LABOV, 1972, p.185)

When  analyzing  these  Labov’s  words,  we  can  think  the  following:  how  would  a  
saussurian work with a social langue with only one or two informants, if we only have
the langue in   its   totality   “if   we   could   embrace   the   sum   of   word-images stored in the
minds  of  all  individuals,  we  could  identify  the  social  bond  that  constitutes  the  language”
(SAUSSURE, p. 13) And he adds:

It [the langue] is a storehouse filled by the members of a given community

through their active use of speaking, a grammatical system that has a
potential existence in each brain, or, more specifically, in the brains of a
group of individuals. For language is not complete in any speaker; it exists
perfectly only with a collectivity. (SAUSSURE, 1959, p. 14)

Or as we can affirm that Saussure has not considered the social life if he himself
says that the langue “is purely social and independent of the individual” (ibidem, p. 18).
Therefore, we can see that Labov criticizes the fact that Saussure, according to him, has
never developed a science of the parole, nevertheless, we can highlight that Saussure
has been concerned about clarifying his concepts about langue with lots of examples of
occurrences of the parole. As we can observe, the CGL é full of examples in French,
German, Greek, English, etc, and also, if we remember the trip that Saussure went to
Lithuania where he studied occurrences of the parole from dialects of the people from
that region, we notice a work that emphasizes, mainly, the parole. These facts ratifies
that the heterogeneous,  according  to  Labov,  was  very  present  in  the  saussurian’s  studies,  
however, Saussure’s  object  was  always  the  langue.

However,  Joseph  criticizes  this  Labov’s  view  and  so  he  analyzes  it  from  the  fact  
that   “the   so-called Saussurean paradox (Labov, 1972, p. 185-7) misconstrues lessons
from the Genevan linguist establishing a tension between the potential adequacy of an
individual’s  parole to reveal langue and the necessity of an interactive parole to reveal
langue”  (JOSEPH,  2004,  p.87).  He  also  adds that Thibault disarms this conception the
sociolinguist   has   affirming   that   “the   articulation   of   the   ‘Saussurean   paradox’
inadvertently reveals a failure to detect the multiple readings of langue outlined by
Thibault and to grasp their compatibility with each  other”  (JOSEPH,  2004,  p.  87).

Moreover, Normand affirms   that   “the   social   trait   is   fundamental,   but   different  
from the system, it does not determine in Saussure a point of view and a proper
method”,  the  author  also  ensures that the Genevan linguist did not get too far from what
said his contemporaries, in other words, he also assured the langue is   a   “social   fact”,  
however,   according   to   Normand,   this   is   not   considered   the   “most   clarifying  
characteristics to define the specific nature of the langue […]what really matters to the
linguist is that langue is   a   system   of   signs,   an   institution   that   he   calls   semiology”  
(NORMAND, 2009, p. 52). Besides, Sanders affirms that the langue characterized as
social  preceded  Saussure’s  studies,  “one  view  of  language  as  a social institution, an idea
which is present in the CGL, had been articulated in the eighteenth century by the
philosopher  Destutt  de  Tracy”  (SANDERS,  2004,  p.  32)  and  she  adds  that  this  concept  
was not totally explained in the saussurian studies, so she alleges   that   “the   related  
concept of language as social interaction is not fully developed in Saussure, partly
because  of  the  incomplete  nature  of  his  work.”

It is notorious that Saussure has presented a different approach to the linguistics

studies pointing out that the object to be studied would be the langue, so that there is a
focus on what is social. However, the individual part was not something that simply did
not appear in his work, actually, it was present in his work. We can observe that the
langue and the parole do not work apart from each other in Saussure (1959, p. 18), so
“language   is   necessary   if   speaking   is   to   be   intelligible   and   produce   all   its   effects;;   but  
speaking is necessary for the establishment of language, and historically its actuality
always  comes  first”,  or  as  Normand  points  out  “the  langue, isolated from the parole, is
only  fiction…  It  is  known  that  in  the  same  time  the  generality  of  the   social fact, early
thought by Durkheim, equally irritated those ones, like G. Tarde, who were fascinated
by   the   diversity,   by   the   heterogeneous,   or   by   the   individual   singularity”(NORMAND,  
2009, p. 128). We can also see this discussion in Silva (2011):

“[…]   not   that   langue and parole should be, in all moments, studied
separately.  […]  But  the  separation of elements mutually interdependent only
happens abstractly, in other words, the langue separated from the parole only
 subsists through a mental process, through the reflection of the linguist about
the properties that the this object owns. (SILVA, 2011, p. 11)

Another  fact  we  can  notice  in  Labov’s  reading  of  Saussure  is  that,  according  to  
Coan  and  Freitag  (2010,  p.  175)  “the  sociolinguist  does  not  see  the  langue as a propriety
of   the   individual,   but   of   the   community   (it   is   social)”,   though   “Labov   disagrees of
Saussure, Chomsky and others who insist in the homogeneity necessary to the linguistic
object, that ignore the heterogeneity and that consider the parole as chaotic and
demotivated”   (FIGUEROA   apud COAN; FREITAG, 2010, p. 175). Nevertheless,
Normand   adds   that   “abnegating   the   demarcation   langue/parole and that one which is
allied to them, langue/langage, would be abnegate the principal of pertinence that has
permitted  the  beginning  of  the  modern  linguistics”.  (NORMAND,  2009,  p.  131)

At this point we can see a great difference between the works of Saussure and
Labov, as Coan and Freitag observe:

All the sociolinguists agree that productions and interpretations of a speaker

are  not  the  primarily  place  of  a  linguistics’  investigation  nor  the  final  units of
analyses, but the used components to construct models to our primary object
of interest, the speech community (COAN; FREITAG, 2010, p. 175)

While  Saussure  “has  distanced  the  ‘subject’,  as  many  people  insists on saying, or
at least, the individual, which  is  marked  by  the  traits  of  conscious  […]  it  was  reserved,  
or abandoned, to the domain of parole (NORMAND, 2009, p. 133). This way, we can
notice   that   there’s   a   great   difference   on   what   is   considered   social   by   Saussure   and  
Labov, so there is a very different approach between them.

Equally, we can notice that the social concept of Labov was also criticized:

The   impact   of   Labov’s   work   on   the   languages’   studies   was   widely  

recognized.  Although  his  concept  of  “social”  has  been  criticized  (rightly)  by  
scholars affiliated with other theoretical perspectives – such as the discourse
analyzes, the language sociology, the linguistic anthropology, the
interactional  sociolinguist  etc.”    (BAGNO,  2008,  p.  9)

Thinking now about the abstract/concrete, Labov has made an observation which
shows a very different reading on what we find in the Cours. The author first talks about
the saussurian paradox, as we saw before, and also Labov adds after this the following:
“the  study  of  this  abstract   ‘language’”  (LABOV,  1972,  p.  186); this statement we can
find  in  the  saussurian’s  studies,  as  we could observe before, Saussure always stated that
the langue is concrete.

Joseph (2004, p. 64) says that this concept of the object of linguistics being
concrete is one of the complex aspects in Saussure, once the object is concrete when we
have the junction of the signifier and the signified , when we have only one of them,
these are simply an abstraction. Joseph always states:

The  first  thing  to  understand  is  that,  for  Saussure,  ‘real’  and  ‘concrete’  had  a  
specific   and   somewhat   idiosyncratic   meaning.   […]   he   asked   what   can   be  
 called  ‘real’  in   morphology,   and  answered,  ‘what  speakers  are  conscious  of  
to   any   degree   whatever’   […]   he   does   not   mean   that   speakers   are   always  
directly aware of the concrete linguistic units they are using.

He also adds that,

Abstractions,  on  the  other  hand,  are  linguists’  analytical  inventions  – and that
includes   the   signifier   and   signified.   […]   specifically   warns   his   students   to  
avoid dissociating the two elements of the sign, lest they produce
abstractions, units that appear to exist but are not actually part of the
language. (JOSEPH, 2004, p. 65)

This excerpts leave the idea that Saussure had in relation to the concrete and
abstract, we could see that he defended the langue as concrete, and that abstract is only
what represents the sign dissociated from its minor parts, the signified and the signifier.

We  find  in   Normand  (2009,  p.  60)  that   this  “obsession”  by  the   word  concrete  
was opposed by the scientific ideology of that time that had the necessity of abstraction,
and   so   “from   this   [the   usage   of   the   word   concrete]   derive   certain   confusions   of   this  
speech that, in its definitions, adds the evidences of its time, statements of a totally
different  importance”.

5. Conclusion

The Course in General Linguistics was great target of critics, such as the fact of
being   a   posthumous   work   organized   from   the   notebooks   of   Saussure’s   students   and  
some of the saussurian manuscripts, we can observe that these and other critics to the
CGL   and   to   Saussure’s   ideas   are   innumerous,   authors question the new saussurian
concepts, and also what he has not explored abundantly in his work. We can clearly see
this when Labov together with Weinreich and Herzog (2009, p. 57) talk about what they
call   “Saussure’s   error”,   referring   to   the   saussurian   concepts   which   were based on the
synchronic studies.

However, despite all these critics we can also see that the concepts
concrete/abstract and social/individual were constructed so that Saussure could clarify
their   characteristics   in   his   Geneva’s   classes,   furthermore,   in   one   hand   we   have   the  
Geneva linguist that institutes the langue as social and concrete and, finally, as object of
linguistics. On the other hand, Labov does not leave the social aside, but he sees the
social in a different way, he recognizes it in the speech communities, that way he could
create what we recognize today as sociolinguistic.

6. References

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LABOV, W. Padrões sociolinguísticos. Tradução de Marcos Bagno, Maria Marta

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NORMAND, C. SAUSSURE. Tradução de Ana de Alencar e Marcelo Diniz. São

Paulo: Editora Estação Liberdade, 2009.

SANDERS, C. The Cambridge Companion to Saussure. Cambridge – UK: Editora

Cambridge University Press, 2004.

SAUSSURE, F. (1916). Curso de Linguística Geral. Tradução de Antônio Chelini,

José Paulo Paes, Izidoro Blikstein. São Paulo: Cultrix, 2006.

SILVA, D. M. Saussure – As conseqüências da instituição de um elemento híbrido,

a langue, sistema/fato social, como objeto da linguística. In: Anais do SILEL,
Volume 2, Número 2. Uberlândia: EDUFU, 2011.